Figure files

[Don R. Robinson]

It has been my experience that postscript files created with metapost
occasionally do not display characters when converting a dvi file to a pdf
via distiller.  The only thing I have been able to determine is that if the
document (not the ps or eps file) contains the characters in the eps file,
then they show up correctly in the pdf file.  But is the characters are not
in the document they do not show up in the pdf file.  I am assuming that the
same problem occurs when using any ps or eps file.

I use metapost to create diagrams (statistics and the associated
distributions) for pdf files used in class and a supplement I publish.

One workaround is to put all the characters that will appear in the eps file
early in the document.  That way I think that the appropriate fonts are then
imbedded in the document and show up in the diagrams when you print the dvi
file using distiller.

After confirming that all the characters appear, open the pdf in Acrobat and
delete the extraneous characters from the pdf file.  If possible one can
include the eps characters as a normal part of the document so this step can
be skipped.